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God's help is often unexpected and overwhelming, Pope tells Wednesday audience

October 12, 2011

At his weekly public audience on October 12, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on how “God works marvels in the history of mankind.”

The Pope’s talk at the Wednesday audience was on Psalm 126, which celebrates Israel’s return from Babylon and praises “the great things which the Lord has done for His people.” The psalm recounts a historical episode, the Pope observed, but it “goes beyond the purely historical and opens to a broader, theological dimension.”

The deeper intent of Psalm 126, the Pope said, is to highlight “the hidden mystery of life,” and the overwhelming force of God’s love and care for His people. He pointed to the psalm’s reference to the waters of the Neg’eb and the grain that they nourish. “This latter image,” the Pope said, “also evokes the disproportion typical of things of God: disproportion between the fatigue of sowing and the immense joy of the harvest.”

The Pope concluded with the thought that the faithful “must remain hopeful and firm in our faith in God.” The Lord’s care, he remarked, is often expressed in ways that are surprising and overpowering.

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